The Nativity, with God the Father Surrounded by Angels and Cherubim

c. 1470

Francesco di Giorgio Martini

Artist, Sienese, 1439 - 1501

A kneeling woman and a sitting man are on either side of a nude baby boy as a bearded man, God, and winged angels hover in the sky over a deep landscape. This vertical panel has a rounded top. The people all have pale skin with pink cheeks, white-blond or gray hair, and wear robes in shades of carnation pink, azure blue, and buttercup yellow. The woman is larger in scale than the man sitting opposite her, and she has notably pale, white-colored skin. In the right half of the painting, she kneels facing inward over the baby with her palm and fingertips together in front of her chest. She looks down and to our left, past the baby, with pale gray eyes under thin brows. She has a long, delicate nose, thin lips, and a pointed chin. Her ice-blond hair is pulled up around a white band, and curls fall down past her shoulders. Her blue cloak is lined with white. The baby lies facing her on one end of the cloak, propped up on blue and dark pink pillows. The baby has a round pate and tiny features. He crosses his ankles and holds one hand up with the first two fingers raised. The man sitting to the left is balding with gray hair and a curly beard. His wide-set eyes slope down at the outer corners, and he looks down and to the right with his lips parted. He is barefoot and holds a short staff in one hand. The woman, baby, and man have disk-like gold halos. A canteen hangs from the low branch of a tree, and a sack lies at its foot just beyond the man. The ruins of a red brick arch and a shorn tree trunk support a thatched roof near the left edge of the painting. The rocky ground gives way to grassy hills dotted with trees in the background. A river winds to the horizon, which comes over halfway up the composition. Two birds float on the water and two bridges span it. A conical hill rises along the right edge of the painting. Against a pale blue sky in the top third, God has a beard, a lined forehead, and hooded eyes. He floats supported and surrounded by fourteen youths with short, gold wings. Seemingly countless winged baby heads painted in tones of cobalt blue create a cloud of its own behind God and the youths. Four older angels hover below. Two, who wear pink, have their hands together in prayer and the other two, wearing blue or black, cross their arms.

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Artwork overview

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

NGA panel, God the Father Surrounded by Angels and Cherubim:
Alphonse Kann [1870-1948], Paris; purchased January 1917 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[1] sold 12 November 1920 to Robert Lehman [1892-1969], New York;[2] sold June 1943 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA.
MMA panel, The Nativity:
Charles Butler [1822-1910), London, and Warren Wood, Hatfield, Hertfordshire, by 1897; (Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); purchased March 1904 by Robert Henry [1850-1929] and Evelyn Holford [1856-19434] Benson, London; returned to (Thos. Agnew & Sons, Ltd., London); purchased June 1905 by (Alexandre Imbert, Rome);[4] sold 1917 through Francis Mason Perkins to George [1858-1941] and Florence [1875-1930] Blumenthal, New York;[5] gift 1941 to The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
[1] X Book, Reel 422, Duveen Brothers Records, accession number 960015, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles.
[2] See copy of the Duveen Brothers bill of sale to Robert Lehman, in NGA curatorial files. Robert Lehman was the son of Philip Lehman [1861-1947], and they collaborated on the formation of the Lehman collection.
[3] The bill of sale between Robert Lehman and the Kress Foundation for fifteen paintings, including "God the Father and Angels," is dated 11 June 1943; payment was made four days later (copy in NGA curatorial files).
[4] The details of Agnew's and Benson's ownership of the painting are from the Agnew stock books and outlined in the Getty Provenance Index. The painting was stock number 1142, and the initial entry is marked "half profit C[harles] F[airfax] M[urray]." The Bensons apparently had the painting on approval; the line giving Benson as the buyer 28 March 1904 is crossed out and the name and date "Alexandre Imbert, 8 June 1905," has been added.
[5] Fausto Nicolai, "More than an expatriate scholar: Frederick Mason Perkins as art dealer, agent and intermediary for American collectors of the twentieth century," Journal of the History of Collections 28, no. 2 (2016): 314-315, fig. 3.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1904

  • (MMA panel) Exhibition of Pictures of the School of Siena, Burlington Fine Arts Club, London, 1904, no. 33.

1917

  • (MMA panel) Loan Exhibition of Italian Primitives, F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York, 1917, no. 64.

1920

  • (MMA panel) Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1920, unnumbered catalogue.

1946

  • (NGA panel) Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 799.

1988

  • (joined NGA and MMA panels) Painting in Renaissance Siena, 1420-1500, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1988-1989, nos. 65a, 65b, repro., as God the Father Surrounded by Angels.

Bibliography

1928

  • Lehman, Robert. The Philip Lehman Collection, New York: Paintings. Paris, 1928: no. LII, repro. (NGA panel).

1943

  • Weller, Allen. Francesco di Giorgio 1439-1501. Chicago, 1943: NGA panel: 60, 63, 67-69, fig. 13; MMA panel: 62-64, 108, 117, 226, 253, fig. 11.

1945

  • (NGA panel) Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 51, repro.

1946

  • (NGA panel) Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 32, repro.

1952

  • (NGA panel) Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 28, color repro.

1959

  • (NGA panel) Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 80, repro.

1963

  • (NGA panel) Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 299, repro.

1965

  • (NGA panel) Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 51.

1966

  • (NGA panel) Shapley, Fern Rusk. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: Italian Schools, XIII-XV Century. London, 1966: 153-154, fig. 416.

1968

  • (NGA panel) National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 44, repro.

  • Berenson, Bernard. Italian Pictures of the Renaissance: Central and North Italian Schools, 3 vols. London, 1968: 1:MMA panel: 140; NGA panel: 141.

1975

  • (NGA panel) European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 134, repro.

1979

  • (NGA panel) Shapley, Fern Rusk. Catalogue of the Italian Paintings. 2 vols. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1979: 1:190-191; 2:pl. 132.

1984

  • (NGA panel) Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 80, no. 30, color repro.

1985

  • (NGA panel) European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 160, repro.

1987

  • Toledano, Ralph. Francesco di Giorgio Martini. Pittore e scultore. Milan, 1987: NGA panel: 15, 31, 33, 55, 60-62, cat. 17, fig. 13; MMA panel: 63-64, cat. 18, fig. 14.

1993

  • Gagliardi, Jacques. La conquête de la peinture: L’Europe des ateliers du XIIIe au XVe siècle. Paris, 1993: 552, fig. 687.

2003

  • (joined NGA and MMA panels) Boskovits, Miklós, and David Alan Brown, et al. Italian Paintings of the Fifteenth Century. The Systematic Catalogue of the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 2003: 278-282, color repro.

2006

  • Fahy, Everett. "Early Italian paintings in Washington and Philadelphia." The Burlington Magazine 148, no. 1241 (August 2006): 539.

2015

  • Sallay, Dóra. Corpus of Sienese Paintings in Hungary 1420-1510. Florence, 2015: 174.

2016

  • Nicolai, Fausto. "More than an expatriate scholar: Frederick Mason Perkins as art dealer, agent and intermediary for American collectors of the twentieth century," Journal of the History of Collections 28, no. 2 (2016): 314-315, fig. 3 (without citing the NGA painting).

Wikidata ID

Q20174008

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